


Sleeping Here Right Next To Me

by featherflairs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, Bed & Breakfast, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-28 05:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15042260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherflairs/pseuds/featherflairs
Summary: Travelling for work was never an issue, but sharing a very small bed in an even smaller room might be the end of them.All Harry knows is Malfoy has awfully nice hair and the prick won't let go of his arm.





	Sleeping Here Right Next To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Hayley Kiyoko's 'Sleepover' because angsty bed sharing is so fitting here*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> Bed sharing prompt off my soft kink bingo Recalibrates threw at me, was meant to be cute and funny but turned into this oddly soft and suspenseful thing? It had a mind of it's own tbh, Was part of a 5k and under challenge!
> 
> Also thanks to Sickdaysurfer for being my last minute beta <3

If anyone had told Harry that growing up to be an Auror would involve staying with Draco Malfoy at a Bed n’ Breakfast in Manchester during a Liverpool match, he would have laughed in their face. But here he was, with the blond git himself, standing in the lobby of a quaint little bed n' breakfast because there were no other rooms available in the city due to the influx in football fans.

They were scheduled for a meeting in the morning with Manchester's local police about an illegal potion's ring that had started leaking into muggle pharmacies. But since their magical signatures could potentially be tracked, they couldn’t apparate and were horridly confined to muggle methods of transportation. Unless they wanted potential leads for a case of this magnitude to scatter underground, taking the train and staying in muggle hotels was their only option. 

And he really couldn’t complain about Malfoy all that much, they’d been partners for more than four years by this point. They knew each other pretty well and got along as best they ever could, even daring that they worked pretty damn good together. But still, after travelling by train all day and not eating for a several hours, Draco was Cranky.

So Harry stood with their overnight bags, calmly ignoring Malfoy's argument with the little old man behind the check-in desk. They’d already been through this at four other hotels so Harry knew to steer clear of the haggling process.

He'd taken up looking around the foyer instead, with it's lace tablecloths and white slatted walls. A thick leather guest book sat on the front table with photos of former guests filling up any and all free space on the walls. Their vaguely disturbing smiles stared back at Harry in an offensively cheerful way.

“They only have one room left.”

Harry tore his eyes from an elderly couple holding up a union jack on some local monument to Malfoy offering a skeleton key out towards him. He didn’t look happy.

“That’s the best news we’ve had all night, what's wrong now?” Harry frowned, taking the key from pale fingers as Draco grabbed his bag.

“There’s only one bed in the room, so that means you’ll be on the floor.”

“Why does that mean I’ll be on the floor?” Harry loudly complained, following Malfoy down the hall to the stairway leading to the second floor. He quickly smiled and muttered thanks to the frazzled old man behind the desk, shuffling behind Draco up the stairs.

“Are you implying you want to share a bed with me?”

“Fuck off, it means that I don't want a bad back in the morning and I don't care about petty things such as sharing bed space with another man.”

Draco snorted in front of him, leading Harry down a small hallway that could only be described as _frilly_.

They stopped at a doorway halfway down the hall, Harry nudging him aside to try and work the skeleton key into the ancient looking keyhole. After several attempts and a few mocking jibes, he finally got the archaic lock to work, pushing open the door to see how bad the damage was.

“Oh.” Harry mumbled, frowning: Maybe Malfoy had a point about sleeping on the floor.

The room was just as quaint as the lobby, but it was small and the bed was even smaller. A space of approximately four feet allowed their bags to be placed on the floor nestled tightly beside a twin bed with a tiny nightstand. That was it. The room itself had to be only five feet wide and maybe eight feet long; there was so little furniture because there was just no space for anything more. The room was very bright and cheerful thanks to the tiny window by the nightstand, but the pleasant atmosphere it tried to achieve was ruined by the sheer lack of space.

Harry stepped in and placed his bag on tiny floor space at the bottom of the bed, Malfoy shuffling behind him to place his own bag on the bed. Normally the size of the room wouldn’t matter: they’ve stayed in close quarters for overnights before. But even on opposite ends of the room, they were maximum five feet apart. This was going to be much.

“Still fine with it?” Malfoy glared, pulling out his half finished sandwich from earlier in the day and sitting on the bed angrily.  
Harry just stared at him, glanced around for another place to sit other than on the bed, and sighed.

“I’m going to go find the toilet.” He resolved, not taking Malfoy’s bait.

He rooted around for the bedclothes, leaving the tiny room with an angry Malfoy to go in search for the floor's shared loo.

The shared bathroom was found at the end of the hall, and Harry was almost sure it was bigger than their own room. He locked the door behind him and investigated the pink tiled lavatory, placing his clothes onto the counter before turning on the shower. If he was going to be in such close proximity to Malfoy all night he knew the Slytherin was going to complain about him smelling. He resolved to shower before it even started. Plus, it would earn him a few extra moments of quiet. 

By the time Harry got back to the room in flannel pajamas and a cannon’s tshirt, Malfoy was already in bed, his glasses on and a ratty muggle romance novel out. Harry cracked a smile. The first time he had witnessed Draco’s night routine he’d had to leave the room to calm down, but now he was somewhat used to it. Each time he got to witness the uncommon scene it just became more and more endearing. Tonight’s novel was _Sunset’s in Santander_. Fabio, bless him, graced yet another cover. 

They’d had to share hotel rooms many times but the significant difference this time was the two feet of space Harry was supposed to fit into, rather than his own bed all to himself.

He stood by the door long enough for Malfoy to look up, sighing and putting his book down on his chest.

“Do you prefer the wall or the edge?” He muttered, Harry giving him a dirty look.

“If I say wall you’ll complain about falling off the edge, if I say edge you’ll complain about being squished against the wall.”

Malfoy pursed his lips, not denying it.

“You take the wall, I’ll take the edge. You're far skinnier than I am.” Harry answered for him, tossing his dirty clothes into his bag before haltingly approaching the bed.

Malfoy shuffled closer to the wall, looking put out at being called skinny, leaving about two and a half feet of space for Harry on the mattress. The bed could easily fit two kids or two small women, but they both had broad shoulders in great contrast. He wasn’t feeling too optimistic about this. He didn't particularly care, but he was worried Malfoy would just continue to goad and complain about the whole thing.

Malfoy had picked up his book to resume reading, his back propped against the wall and laying on his side to leave Harry as much room as possible.

Harry still hesitated though, looking to the clock on the nightstand before confirming that it was nearly 1am and yes, it was time to sleep. 

He couldn’t avoid it any longer.

He carefully sat on the edge of the mattress, putting his glasses on the nightstand and rubbing his face exhaustively.

“Why is your hair wet?” Came from behind him.

“We’ve been travelling all day and you would've complained about me smelling so I showered preemptively.”

“Oh... Thank you.”

Harry smiled slimly at the surprised tone, carefully pushing the blankets down before turning to slide his legs under, intensely aware how his hip and arm fit immediately against Malfoy. And suddenly everything seemed so much closer.

“Are you still sure you wouldn’t prefer the floor?”

“Why do you keep asking me that? Aren’t you also uncomfortable with this situation?” Harry grumbled, frowning as he shoved at his pillow, trying to get comfortable and knocking Malfoy's book in the process.

After a moment of awkward silence Malfoy rolled onto his back, taking up any free space on the mattress that had been available. Harry grunted, moving closer to the edge away from him, cold shoulder hanging off the edge. 

“Uncomfortable is not the word I would use.”

“What word would you use?”

“... tedious?”

“Sleeping is tedious?”

“Next to you, yes. Almost always. One hundred percent of the time.”

“That doesn’t make sense, I'm a great sleeper. I don't snore, I fall asleep immediately, I barely move-”

“Shut up, Potter. Just turn off the light.”

Harry rolled his eyes, ignoring his attitude and rolling away from Draco while reaching to turn off the light, choosing to hang his arm off the side of the bed rather than take up extra space. The street lamps from outside cast a faint shadow over the room, and thankfully, that shadow gave the tiny room the allusion of much greater space.

Harry figured if he stayed on his side like this, than Malfoy could have all the room he wanted and they would be fine.

Draco had tossed his heroine novel down onto his bag with his glasses, probably exactly into the opening of his bag too, the bugger. Harry was always annoyed at how good Malfoy was at small things like that, and he was smug about it too. 

The painstaking process of trying to relax with Malfoy shuffling around behind him was maddening. They were sharing a blanket, which meant that they could accidentally touch feet at any given moment, and in fact had already happened once, which caused them both to banish their feet to opposite sides of the bed. There were two pillows, thankfully, but Harry’s was falling off the edge since they were meant to be stacked, not placed side by side.

Every time Malfoy moved Harry could feel the silk of his pajamas brush up against his arm or, on one occasion, his neck. But it wasn’t just the silk pajamas, Malfoy was getting rough, sometimes jabbing an elbow into Harry’s back, a knee to the hip. He was going to wake up bruised if this continued.

After twenty minutes that seemed more like an hour, Harry rolled onto his back and earned a squeak from Draco, whose arm promptly got stuck under Harry's back.

“Potter-”

“You need to stop moving.” Harry commanded, tired and no longer in the mood for bickering anymore. It was time to sleep, they had a case they needed to work in the morning and dealing with Malfoy during the day was exhausting enough.

Draco was quiet, tugging his hand from under Harry’s shoulder and staring at him in the dark.

“My apologies for having a difficult time getting comfortable.”

“Well, is there anything I can do to speed that process up?” Harry asked exhaustively, talking to the ceiling with his eyes closed. The answer would be no but he might as well try.

After another awkward pause Draco whispered. “Could I use your arm?”

It made Harry open his eyes, looking to his partner for the first time since the lights went out.

Draco’s hair always sort of glowed, even in broad daylight. It held a kind of beauty that people paid thousands of pounds to achieve in the muggle world. Secretly, Harry always admired it. His blond hair had grown long over the years, dare Harry ever compare it to Lucius’ because its was infinitely prettier and better kept in any and all ways. Though Draco always had it braided and tied at the back of his neck in an intricate kind of bun, hiding it away from being seen by the world. It was a chosen hairstyle that perplexed Harry whenever he attempted to logic puzzle the bun during long meetings or when they walked down the hall.  


But at some point after turning off the light and all the shuffling, he had untied his hair and it now draped around him like a cascade of light and silver. Harry was heavily distracted, only having seen this once or twice in all the four years they'd been partners.

“Sorry, what was that about my arm?” He whispered, distracted by the hair.

Then Malfoy sighed loudly at Harry's question and it was clearly still him, not the beautiful angel his hair falsely portrayed.

“I _said_ , can I use your arm? I usually have a pillow I can hold when I sleep but there’s no room or extra pillows I can use.” He repeated, his tone seeming confident. However, they’d been working together long enough that Harry didn’t miss the wavering in his his voice.

Harry hesitated as he tried to comprehend the odd request, shrugging after a moment.

“Er, I guess. Do what you want?” He mumbled, curious about what was going to happen when he offered his arm.

Draco didn’t have to reach very far, knowing exactly what he wanted. He took hold of Harry’s bicep, flopping his head onto the edge of his pillow near Harry as he hugged onto the meat of his arm, holding it tight to his chest. This resulted in Harry’s hand landing somewhere near Malfoy’s hip beneath the blankets, excruciatingly close to where his crotch would be located. He jerked his hand back once realizing, resting his hand against his own hip instead. Apparently Malfoy would only need his upper arm to complete the odd sleeping ritual. After waiting for the prick to shuffle closer and get comfortable, Harry figured that was it and they were fine.

But the heat of Draco's hands was like a fire brand around his arm. His obnoxious silk pajamas did nothing to hide the sturdy muscle Harry knew Malfoy hid under his dramatic work robes, now laying terrifyingly close and making Harry's chest hurt. That hair he’d been obsessing over was also a big part of the equation, what with Malfoy’s head so close to his shoulder, falling onto him whenever the blond shifted about and tried to settle.

All Harry could do was stare up at the ceiling and try to sleep.

He had an awful night's sleep.

Harry kept waking up in phases, never relaxing enough to fall into a deep sleep. Once he woke up to yelling and singing coming from the street outside their window; drunken football fans making their way home from the pub.

Another time he tried to roll over but Malfoy clung to him like an octopus, restraining his limited movements even further. The one time he didn't mind waking up was when he thought he could hear someone speaking in the room only to find that it was Malfoy snoring gently in his ear.

But at some point in the night Harry woke in dire need for the toilet. Malfoy was pressed all along his side with Harry's arm tucked snuggly beneath his back, forgotten in favor of Draco cuddling against his entire body instead. Draco’s head was heavy on Harry’s shoulder and he'd been breathing against his neck, causing Harry’s skin to crawl once he was awake enough to rationalize the situation. His arm was solidly asleep under the weight of Malfoy's body, but he had to pee and _that_ wasn't up for debate.

Even with that painful reminder, Malfoy looked so damn peaceful that he couldn't bare to intentionally wake him. Instead, Harry slowly pulled out from under Malfoy’s body, gently nudging him backwards onto the bed until he rolled off his arm. Eventually he managed to escape the blond's hold long enough to sneak out of the room without waking him.

After accomplishing his mission down the hall, Harry snuck back into the room and locked the door behind him, leaning back on it to stare wide eyed at the scene in front of him. If he’d been attempting to bury any lingering thoughts about Malfoy, now was the time to face them head on.

The git looked like a goddamn veela, his hair draped around him like some kind of renaissance portrait. He was curled on his side in the center of the mattress, silk pajamas reflecting off the light coming in from the window and the blankets pushed down to his hips where Harry had left them. Harry thought it looked like a scene out of a muggle romance movie, or maybe even Draco's damn smut novels. It was very disconcerting, his pulse betraying the excitement he felt about potentially joining the scene.

He approached as silently as he could, wincing as the floorboards creaked underfoot, trying to lift the blankets over Malfoy so he could slide back into bed.

But the movement seem to wake Draco, who lifted his head without bothering to open his eyes and making a noise of inquiry.

“Just me.” Harry whispered, hoping that would suffice.

Draco hummed, lazily reaching out to paw at him for his arm. Harry offered it without question this time, though not expecting the Slytherin to suddenly roll over and drag Harry on top of him in the process. If he’d been pulling on Harry’s other arm the position would have worked perfectly. But he’d been yanking on his left arm and it was definitely not capable of bending backwards so Harry jerked at the movement and swore loudly. Malfoy just looked over his shoulder in hazy confusion, grey eyes squinting at him to question why his arm was gone.

“Okay, hold on.” Harry decided, climbing into bed properly after Draco released his arm with some prodding.

Malfoy only watched with half lidded eyes, barely awake enough to follow what was happening. Harry properly turned onto his side to face Draco’s back, thrusting his left arm under Malfoy's pillow and hanging his free arm over his waist for all the hugging- no, snuggling - he could possibly want.

The quiet noise of approval was endearing, as was how Draco not only hugged the arm to his chest but he wiggled back into Harry’s body. Yes, this was certainly snuggling.

Harry tensed, surprised with how willing Malfoy was about the new position. He hadn't thought it all through when he had positioned them, but all he could do was stare mystified at the blanket of silver hair in front of his face. The long frame of Draco’s body pressed comfortingly into the curve of his own, astonishingly intimate.

This was about when Harry realized Malfoy wasn’t all hard lines and sharp edges. He was soft and warm and fit perfectly against him, filling all the nooks and crannies he hadn't realized were empty. The part that sent his heart over the edge was how Draco clung to Harry’s forearm so closely that his fingers were tucked beneath his chin. Effectively, this locked Harry around him, making him intensely aware of every little movement his fingers did and where they touched. If he moved them even the slightest he could feel the scratchings of Malfoy’s stubble, the weirdly intense heat coming off his neck, or if he really felt confident, could reach out and thread his fingers through the strands of silver hair that started it all.

He couldn’t think about Malfoy like this, he was his work partner. He had to face him every day at the ministry, they had to travel together and interrogate together, he couldn’t- this wasn’t good. He couldn't do this.

Even when he'd slipped up and noticed things about Malfoy during the day: the broadness of his shoulders when he strode down hallways, the small, untraceable dimples he had during the rare times he grinned or even how impeccable his fucking fingers were- Harry couldn't jeopardize their relationship- their careers were on the line here. It had taken years to cultivate this relationship into something quick and wicked and compatible, they worked spectacularly together but also barely tolerated one another. It was astonishing they got anything done, but they had one of the highest case turnout rates in the department. Not only that, but Draco was always on thin ice wherever he went anyways because of how the general public's distaste for him; Harry wasn't going to jeopardize everything he'd been working for over some guilty thoughts and impulsive hands.

With that in mind, he tried to lean back to get some space but Malfoy just went with him, determined in his unconscious state to chase the heat of Harry’s body. So Harry closed his eyes and tried to not think to how he could feel Malfoy’s breath on his fingertips. There was nothing else he could do but shamefully enjoy this. Maybe if he pretended that this wasn't the Malfoy he worked with but a random stranger he'd picked up in a bar. Then he could humor the guilty pleasure of having him in his arms.

The next time Harry woke up their tiny room was saturated in cold morning light.

After remembering where he was and who he was laying on top of, his brain turned on pretty quickly. Rather than enjoying the sleepy warmth and overwhelming scent of Malfoy's floral shampoo he forced himself wake up from the hazy fog.

Harry didn't need to open his eyes to know their positions had changed during the night. He was only mildly surprised to find Malfoy had shoved himself even further beneath him. Draco had taken great liberty of pulling him even tighter around his body. Harry was taken aback by how tightly they were pressed together, bodies lined up all the way with even a thigh shoved between Malfoy’s. It would have been vulgar if it wasn’t for how comfortable the position was, even when Harry was very aware of where his hips were lined up.

Then Harry recognized why he was woken up, his arm painfully asleep beneath Malfoy’s head. The pillow was now gone, replaced by his arm and shoved against the wall.

He tried to liberate himself from under Draco, but the blond seemed perfectly content for him to remain exactly there.  
He tried to move Draco’s hair aside as much as he could, careful not to pull or tug when he moved his arm, holding his breath as he leaned over to roll Draco back onto the pillow.

He didn’t know why he thought it would work, Malfoy making a loud sound of confusion when he was suddenly flopped onto his back away from him, eyes wide in confusion at the rough change of positions.

After watching Malfoy look around in further confusion, Harry quickly got up, hoping his partner wouldn’t remember anything that happened and promptly choosing not to address it.

“Why did you get up?” Came a soft yawn from the bed, Harry stilling from where he was gathering his clothes.  
He fearfully glanced over to the bed, watching Draco scrubbing at his face and stretching out comfortably in the blankets as if there was nothing wrong in the world.

“... my arm was asleep.” He answered honestly, clearing his throat while folding his clothes for the day.

“Aren't you coming back?”

“Malfoy, what- No.” Harry stammered, trying to find the words and covering his eyes with a hand. “This doesn’t make any sense, why? We're not-”

He heard movement at the top of the bed, Harry looking between his fingers to see Draco sitting up, hair falling around his shoulders like some sort of celestial cloak. He had a vaguely unimpressed look on, one Harry was intimately familiar with. Harry thought he would have been fine, but those silk pajamas had dropped open and his collar bones were on display, distressing him even further. Since when did he like collar bones? Since when did he like Malfoy's collarbones?

“What doesn't make sense is you’re going to get dressed when we still have four hours until the interrogation. Now, you can come back to bed and we can…” He paused before choosing his words, delicately pushing some hair behind his ear. “We can ‘define’ what doesn’t make sense about this. Or, you can go shower and get dressed and do whatever it is you were about to do. We'll forget this entire night and never speak of it again.”

Harry knew he was screwed when a gut wrenching panic coursed through him at the thought of forgetting it. He covered his mouth with a hand, staring down at the luggage and trying to breathe.

After twenty seconds of trying to comprehend the panic, all the while listening to Malfoy lazily shuffling around, he put his clothes back into the bag and stood up. Draco had been loosely braiding his hair while Harry panicked, looking up at him with those familiar grey eyes and an eerily calm expression.

Harry knew him though, after all: He knew that face was the mask he wore when faking nonchalance. He wasn't the only one distressed about the potential of what was going to happen.

So he threw caution to the wind and went back to bed, reputation be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> Btw this room does exist, I stayed at it in Reykjavik when I was backpacking and I mercifully took out the 60 degree slanted roof for the boys lol it was probably my favorite place to stay while travelling tho I am a 5'6 lil gal, not two big detective boys who need their starfish space (its Harry, he's not the perfect sleeper, he loves to starfish)
> 
>  


End file.
